Activity relating to the work of French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Category: Working groups

Neoliberalism and Biopolitics Working Group | Revisiting Foucault: The Biopolitics Lectures and Beyond
Hans Sluga, William and Trudy Ausfahl Professor of Philosophy, UC Berkeley & William Callison, Political Science,

The opening session of the Neoliberalism and Biopolitics Working Group, “Revisiting Foucault: The Biopolitics Lectures and Beyond” will provide a space for discussion of the lasting insights, limitations, and potential applications of Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-79. Linking neoliberalism and biopolitics at both the historical and conceptual level, Foucault’s prescient lecture series lays the groundwork for the workshop’s concern with the contemporary management of populations through diverse practices of economization, privatization, and financialization. Potential topics of discussion include the differences between liberal and neoliberal political rationality; human capital and modes of neoliberal conduct; the specificity of neoliberal governmental techniques; and the difference between biopower and biopolitics. In preparation for the workshop, we will read the last section of The History of Sexuality and three lectures from The Birth of Biopolitics, digital copies of which will be available for workshop participants.

The Neoliberalism and Biopolitics Working Group and Conference is supported by the University of California Humanities Research Institute, organized by UC Berkeley graduate students William Callison (Political Science) and Zachary Manfredi (Rhetoric), and supervised by The Program in Critical Theory faculty Martin Jay (History) and Wendy Brown (Political Science).

To register for these sessions and receive readings contact critical_theory@berkeley.edu. All events are free and open to the public.